Ling 1 Midterm Review:

Please help me get an A!!

linguistic competence

knowledge of words and grammar

linguistic performance

how we use linguistic competence in speech production/comprehension

Linguistic creativity

languages use a finite set of rules to create infinite sentences, thanks to linguistic creativity, you can understand sentences of any length, even ones you haven’t heard before.

Universal Grammar

• Children have an innate ability to understand language

• All human languages share deep underlying structures (eg, phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexicon, semantics, linguistic creativity)

prescriptive grammar

linguists try to “prescribe” a grammar for population (state what’s “correct” and “incorrect”)

descriptive grammar

linguists describe how a speaker actually speaks without telling them what’s right or wrong

McGurk Effect

• Multisensory integration: Your brain does not process hearing and vision in separate, isolated boxes. Instead, it automatically and continuously blends sensory inputs into a single, unified perception of the world. [

• Unconscious processing: The illusion happens automatically. Even if you know how the trick works and that the audio and video do not match, you cannot force your brain to stop hearing the altered sound.

What is it: a mismatch between what you hear and the mouth sounds you see causes brain to perceive a completely different sound

Wug Test

Test to show that children can apply rules of their native lang to nonsense words—highlighted that children could apply plural, past tense, & possessive forms of nouns/verbs that they’d never heard before

dialect

• variety of a language whose grammar differs in systematic ways (eg; lexical, phonological, syntactic, semantic diffs)

• can vary by socioeconomic class, region, gender, generation

dominant/”prestige” dialect

“Standard dialect” of a language, perpetuated by upper class, education systems, NOT more correct/better than other dialects!

[i]

feet “ee”

[ɪ] capital I

sit “ih”

[e]

late “ay”

[ɛ]

“bet” eh

[æ]

rad, cat, thank “ah”

[ʌ] (stressed positions)

“but” “uh”

[ə] (unstressed positions)

about “uh” comma

[u]

boot “oo”

[ʊ]

book, took “eugh”

[ɔ]

caught , frog “aw”

[ɑ]

as in not, “aw” (some dialects merge [ɔ] and [ɑ])

dipthongs

combination of vowel and glide ([aj] as in eye, [ɔɪ] as in soil/boy, [aw] as in house)

How are vowels categorized?

• Tongue position

  • Front

  • Central

  • Back

• Tongue height

  • High

  • Mid

  • Low

• Tenseness

  • Tense

  • lax

• Lip rounding

  • rounded

  • unrounded

1 (name site of articulation & consonants that occur here)

alveolar ridge—site directly behind upper front teeth; site of articulation = alveolars ([t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l], [r])

2 (name site of articulation & consonants that occur here)

hard palate—behind alveolar ridge (center of roof of mouth); site of articulation = palatals ([ʃ] “sh”, [ʒ] (as in “genre”), [tʃ] “ch”, [dʒ] (as in “judge”), [j] (as in “yes”)

3 (name site of articulation & consonants that occur here)

velum (or soft palate)—-behind hard palate; site of articulation = velars ([k], [g], [ŋ] “ng”)

5

Glottis—-site of articulation= glottal, ([ʔ] (glottal stop in uh oh) [h])

Bilabial

Site of articulation = when two lips press together ([b], [m], [p])

Labiodental

site of articulation = when upper teeth meet bottom lip ([v], [f])

interdental

site of articulation= where tongue meets front teeth ([θ] (thigh, breathe), [ð] (thy, father, breathe)

Labiovelar

site of articulation = lips and velum (bilabial & velar—- [w])

Classification of consonants: voicing

Whether a consonant is voiced (vocal folds vibrating—bc vocal folds are together & air forces thru which causes vibrations) or voiceless (open glottis, vocal folds separate and air flowing thru)

How to check if a consonant is voiceless

press fingers to adam’s apple and speak! (do small sound, don’t add vowel bc otherwise you’ll feel a vibration! eg; instead of “ba” just do “buh” or “tuh” instead of “tah”)

Manner of articulation—Stops

Stop = airflow is completely blocked

Stops can be oral (velum raised, blocks nasal cavity—when stop released, air flows out of mouth)

Or nasal (velum lowered, air flows out of nasal cavity when stop is released)

Nasal stops (all the rest of the consonants are oral!)

[m], [n], [ŋ] (ng)

Manner of articulation—aspiration

brief puff of air that escapes after stop is released before vocal cords vibrate for voicing vowels [p], [t], [k] ←only occur in word-initial position (eg, pool, tale, kale)

Manner of articulation—fricatives

Major, but NOT complete obstruction in vocal tract (not a complete stop, air can still force its way thru)

[f], [v], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ] (as in genre, pleasure), [h]

Manner of articulation: Affricates

stop quickly followed by a fricative!

[tʃ] as in cheap, [dʒ] as in Judge ←notice how the symbols are a combo of a stop and a fricative!

Manner of articulation: Liquids

Minor obstruction of vocal tract with tongue, but air still passes through. Liquids can be LATERAL ([l], air passes thru sides of tongue)

or RETROFLEX ([r] tongue curves back behind alveolar ridge in retroflex position, air passes thru)

Manner of articulation: Glides

[j] (as in yes) = palatal glide, [w] = labial-velar glide

Broca’s Aphasia

• Damage to frontal lobe in left hemisphere

• Few words, but coherent

• Semantics ok, syntax not ok, comprehension mostly ok, writing not ok

Wernicke’s Aphasia

• Damage to temporal lobe in left hemisphere

• Speech is fluent but incoherent (struggle with semantics, but syntax is ok)

• Grammar is unaffected—but word choice/meaning is

• Comprehension = impaired

• Writing = not ok

fMRI Experiment, BSL vs. English

• Researchers scanned brain to see ppl process English & BSL

• Consistently, each group had Broca’s area (frontal) and Wernicke’s area (temporal) light up

• Suggests that even tho spoken + sign language use diff modalities, both are still processed in same area of brain

Is language associated with intelligence: Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

• Characterized by specific types of difficulty with language

• Children may start speaking late

• Still retain normal IQ and ability in other areas (eg, comprehension + hearing)

• Study conducted (Rice and Oetting), took 50 five year old children w/ SLI and 58 non-SLI younger children

  • Both groups used sentences of comparable length, recorded spontaneous speech + plural noun endings

  • Typically developing children (despite young age) performed better

• SLI disproves theory that high IQ=strong lang ability!

Is language associated with intelligence: Williams Syndrome

• Language is intact, but low IQ

• Limited spatial and motor skills

• Exceptional linguistic ability—-also disproves theory that strong language ability = high IQ

Is language associated with intelligence; Linguistic Savants

• Low general intelligence (IQ) but patients have complex language

  • (eg; Christopher can’t take care of himself, but knows multiple (20) languages)

• Further proof of dissociation between general intelligence and linguistic ability!